The Marine Irish Digital Atlas:
a Web Portal to Coastal and Marine Data in Ireland
Ned Dwyer, Liz O'Dea, Valerie
Cummins
Coastal and Marine Resources Centre , Environmental Research
Institute, University College Cork (IE)
Data and information regarding coastal and inshore
marine areas are often difficult to identify, find and access due to their
being dispersed among numerous organisations which play different roles in
the management of coastal areas. This can restrict the quantity and quality
of information available to all those with an interest in coastal areas and
therefore inhibit the formulation of fully informed plans and policies regarding
development and management of these areas.
Over recent years, the volume of data available in digital
form for coastal and marine areas has been increasing and GIS is gaining widespread
acceptance as a means of managing data. These developments should ease data
access, but may in fact further restrict it given data dispersion, the wide
range of formats used, lack of common standards and limited catalogues.
In realisation of these issues, many countries have adopted
spatial data initiatives and are trying to harmonise data cataloguing, documentation
and sharing. International programmes are also afoot to define protocols and
standards to aid geo-spatial data sharing.
One of the initiatives which aims to improve access to coastal
and marine geo-spatial data and information for Ireland is the Marine Irish
Digital Atlas (MIDA) project. This project is financed by the Higher Education
Authority of Ireland and will run for three years until August 2005.
The key objective of the MIDA project is
to develop an Irish digital marine atlas which will be both a repository for
geospatial data and an informational tool, incorporating data, text and multimedia
elements related to resources and activities in coastal and marine areas of
Ireland. Specific objectives are:
- To develop an electronic medium for presentation
of geo-referenced coastal and marine datasets of environmental significance.
- To provide greater accessibility to data and information;
the customised GIS developed will be web enabled.
- To provide flexibility of use by offering a range
of tools, and the option of overlaying layers for comparative purposes.
- To allow users to identify sources of data, information
and expertise on the marine environment.
The atlas will be easily accessible via the Internet,
therefore allowing anyone to identify, visualise, and query both geo-spatial
and non-geographically referenced data relevant to their interests. The atlas
will display data sets from numerous coastal and marine organisations within
Ireland, thus providing the best single resource for finding existing coastal
and marine data sets. Expected end users will come from government bodies, local
authorities, the tourism sector, education and research institutions, commercial
organisations and the general public. A number of representative end users will
be involved throughtout the atlas development in order to provide input and
feedback on design and usability issues.
The atlas will contain geographically referenced data grouped
into four main categories of information: Management, Physical Environment,
Biological Environment and Economic Activities. Within each of these categories
there are a number of sub-categories of data. Similar entities are grouped so
that the data can be quickly and easily navigated. The hierarchical data structure
will facilitate the addition of more data layers without impacting the overall
structure so the atlas can be easily expanded. Examples of typical data layers
are administrative boundaries, estuarine water quality, seabed maps, marine
mammal and seabird distributions, and fish landings. It is expected that a few
hundred separate information layers will be available within the completed atlas.
MIDA is being implemented and operated using open source software
technology. The system runs under the LINUX operating system on a central server,
where all the data sets reside. Users will be able to visualise and query geo-spatial
data directly on the MIDA web site using an open source web-based mapping system
such as MapServer. The system will conform to OpenGISÒ specifications
where possible. Tools such as zoom, query, add layers and search metadata, will
allow interaction with the geo-spatial data.
Metadata forms an integral part of the atlas. It documents each
dataset held in the atlas in a consistent way. The core metadata to be provided
will conform to the ISO 19115 standard. This is in line with the policy being
adopted by other national and international organisations handling spatial data.
An important aspect of the system is that it should be educational,
in order to raise awareness and encourage respect of our coastal and marine
heritage. A range of textual, audio, visual and other multimedia elements will
be included in the atlas.
Development of a prototype demonstration system is currently
underway. This tool will be used to raise awareness of the project and as a
means of encouraging participation in the project from both potential data suppliers
and users of the system. The atlas web site is at http://mida.ucc.ie.